A Brief Anecdote Concerning Certain Flags

When I was eighteen, a friend and I repeatedly noticed this flag bumper sticker on the back of a pickup truck that was continuously parked in a Midwest dorm lot.  There wasn't any chance you'd miss this pickup truck with its shiny wheels and the confederate flag sticker on the back, perfectly centered on the back window, blushing with pride.  Then one day, after numerous remarks concerning this sticker, my friend and I did something spontaneously, insanely, brilliant.  Or at least brilliant in our minds.  She stood as the lookout while I climbed in the back of that shiny pickup truck and proceeded to scrape off that racist reminder.  I managed to get the majority of the sticker removed, I climbed down, and that was that.  Were we in the wrong?  Well, yes, we had just deliberately vandalized someone's truck.  Did it make us feel better?  Yes.  Smug, even.  Would I advise my daughter to also climb into the back of someone's truck and peel something off of their property?  Of course not.  But I'd also like to think that by the time she's eighteen, confederate flag stickers aren't so widely embraced.



I know many people right now are arguing the heritage of such a flag, but I want to bring up just two minor points.


First, would you also see it as such heritage if a German was flying a Nazi flag?  Because the swastika was around long before the Nazis adopted it, but ever since, the Nazis are in direct association with it.



Second, consider this.  If that flag was still a valid part of our present, would our current flag be?  No, no it would not.  One cancels out the other.




Obviously, I don't need to express my views further, but please note, this is my blog.  And if at eighteen, I willingly scraped a sticker off the back of a truck at nine at night, you could easily guess what I think should happen all of these years later.  Perhaps I'll just blame it on my heritage.  And removing such flags may not remove racism, but it may make people feel better and give the impression that maybe, just maybe, it is merely history, and no longer part of the present.